


Flings

by Crowlows19



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Bruce Wayne is a Good Parent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-21
Updated: 2019-10-21
Packaged: 2020-12-27 14:56:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21120641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crowlows19/pseuds/Crowlows19
Summary: Bruce had always tried his hardest to keep the boys away from his social life. There had only been two incidents in all the time he'd been a parent and only Tim had made it a public incident. That was probably the best he could hope for.





	Flings

There would be many women in Bruce’s life, few of them special. There were the women he worked with at Wayne Enterprises and as Batman; there were the women he flirted with at events; there were the women he picked up in the clubs; there were the women of his social strata. Those fellow elite Gothamites who perhaps belonged to The Club, a private club so exclusive you had to be invited to even know it existed and their last invitation had been given to him, at birth. 

He’d been there once when he was ten and Thomas Wayne had declared it a pompous bore and they’d never been back. There were other private clubs that he belonged to and never went to, including the country club. He didn’t even know how to golf. 

Bruce Wayne was a billionaire who preferred the dance club to the ballroom; the backroom boxing match to the backroom high stakes poker game; the models to the socialites. 

When he’d been a new vigilante, still just a thing in the shadows with no name and no symbol, he would wear his bruises around town, impressing pretty girls at the bar with a bad boy look and surly attitude. He would never admit it later on in life, but he acted quite a bit like Jason, something he dearly hoped the boy never found out about. 

He had a lot of flings in those days. Three times a week he was featured on the gossip pages of the Gotham Gazette’s website. The paparazzi followed him everywhere knowing that eventually, he’d give them that money shot. The too drunk twenty-two year old falling over a gaggle of models; the time he’d chilled in the public fountain in the park with no shirt or shoes; the time he’d crash a two million dollar, one of a kind car because he’d been making out with the girl in the passenger’s seat. The time he was arrested for a bar fight. 

It had gotten old really fast. 

He toned it down when he heard whispers that the board of Wayne Enterprises was looking to oust him. The antics went way down but the dating did not. It wasn’t uncommon for a woman to spend the night with him at Wayne Manor. Every now and then he would date someone for three or four weeks. One woman had even managed to last four months. 

He had officially broken up with her amicably. In reality, she’d thrown a fire poker at his head. 

And then he’d gone back to attending the many and varied charity balls, galas, and formal weddings, birthdays, and soirees of Gotham’s older, classier monied families. The socialites, he thought, would be calmer. They were really just snider. He heard many comments about the little circus orphan he’d brought into their midst with his grubby hands and Converse sneakers. 

That was the last time Bruce took Dick to a gala until he was much older and much more established in his life. 

There had been a woman named Cindi Porter whom Bruce had thought he might have genuine feelings for. He’d even gone so far as to introduce her Dick a few times. The boy had been seventeen then, thinking himself a full-grown man, and giving Bruce attitude at every turn. Dick had outright resented the fact that he still had to “live in your house, I run my own team!” 

Bruce just told him to quit being dramatic and make his bed already. 

Dick hadn’t talked to him for three days. 

But Dick and Cindi had seemed friendly enough. And the boy had said it was cool with him if she came on the annual ski trip. Unfortunately, they’d been fighting by the time the trip came around and Cindi, wound up in the stress of losing the best meal ticket of her life, had started drinking and hadn’t really stopped. 

Dick had been annoyed about something else, possibly something with the Titans, and the two of them had started sniping at each other one night. The next thing Dick knew she had backhanded him full in the face, immediately panicked about what she’d done and locked herself in the bathroom. Dick could have blocked it if he’d been expecting it or had the will to, but she was a civilian, and instead, he’d simply rolled with it, minimizing the damage. 

But when Bruce had returned to the condo from an errand, and seen the scratches her fake nails and real diamonds had left on his face, he’d gone into what Dick called, ‘Batman mode.’ 

Bruce had really been on autopilot, leaving Cindi sobbing hysterically in the bathroom, he’d taken Dick to the teen’s bathroom, giving the three cuts on his mouth some first aid. For the first time in three years, the teen had just let Bruce take care of him as he sat on the bathroom counter. 

“Are you alright?” Bruce asked him when he finished, squeezing Dick’s shoulders. The boy looked outright miserable. 

“I’m really sorry,” he said. “I think I was too mean to her.” 

“It’s not your fault,” Bruce said. “She never should have hit you.” 

Bruce eventually had to break into the bathroom and the police ended up having to take the woman out of the house. He just couldn’t convince her to leave. 

They never spoke again and, really, she was lucky Bruce hadn’t been there when it happened. He had broken more bones for smaller transgressions than that and, honestly, he couldn’t have said if he would have lost control or not. 

It was a testament to Dick’s respect for Bruce that he never threw this incident in his face even when Bruce actually deserved it. 

00000 

The only other child to ever have an unfortunate run-in with one of Bruce’s flings had been Tim and that was only because Tim had a tendency to be incredibly oblivious when he was in one of his manic states. Although, this time around the violence hadn’t been directed at the boy himself. Bruce just wished it hadn’t been so public and in front of a League member, no less. 

Bruce had been incredibly concerned the first time he'd seen Tim, all of twelve, post-three day caffeine bender. To this day, Bruce had no idea what Tim had been working on to merit such a thing. He'd gotten used to Tim's antics pretty quickly but Tim had also never been this bad, this publicly before. Bruce had been on his way out to a lunch meeting one Sunday when he'd come across Tim in the bedroom he camped out in when his parents were out of town. They had celebrated Tim's thirteenth birthday the night before and Bruce had thought he'd gone to bed at a reasonable hour. 

However, he only needed one look to see Tim hadn't slept. He was sprawled on his bed, holding his phone over his face, and blinking stupidly. Bruce sighed and contemplated his next move. Alfred wasn't home, having gone out to run some errands. For some reason he couldn’t quite pinpoint, he didn't like the thought of leaving Tim on his own. 

"Tim, get dressed," he said and then smirked when the sudden sound of his voice caused Tim to drop the phone on his face. 

"Why?" Tim asked, sitting up and rubbing at the eye his phone had just smacked into. 

"We're going to lunch," Bruce replied. "Meet me in the garage in five minutes." 

Tim stuck to his timeline and five minutes later they were driving towards Gotham City, to a restaurant that Bruce had missed the grand opening to. It was being run by an old school friend and he'd promised that he'd be photographed arriving sometime. A quiet lunch meeting was not what the owner had in mind but Bruce hadn't felt like calling the paparazzi on himself, especially with Tim in the passenger seat looking like death warmed over. 

He was meeting his Public Affairs Vice President, whose performance had started to slip the second he was promoted from his senior director position to the VP title and moved into the corner office. Bruce suspected that the man just wasn’t skilled enough to take on the role and as a result, Bruce was doing a lot more babysitting than he liked. 

Without bothering to introduce his small shadow to his befuddled employee, Bruce sat down and immediately started talking. Tim played on his phone. They only paused their respective activities to order from the waiter. 

Bruce should have been paying more attention though. If he had been he would have noticed Tim get up from the table and wander idly through the dining room. He had noticed him leave of course, but he had assumed the boy was just going to the restroom. Instead, Tim wandered among the tables as if looking for something and simply doing a very inefficient job of it. 

What he found was Oliver Queen, who had been dearly hoping to go unnoticed by the locals, tucked back in a corner with a woman Tim knew from the charity gala circuit. He and Bruce were currently not speaking to each other. A normal state for them but still an awkward one. 

“Hi Mr. Queen,” Tim had said, standing at their table, still on his phone.

“Hey, Tim,” Oliver replied, noting the bags under his eyes and his very distracted air. “What are you up to?”

“Bruce made me go to a business lunch,” Tim snapped, clearly not having it. “This guy is so boring.” Oliver smiled at his whine. The woman he was with cleared her throat delicately, very obviously expecting an introduction to this boy who had walked in with Bruce Wayne. Oliver gritted his teeth and refused to give it to her. If he hadn’t needed something from her for a case, he would have left a half-hour ago. 

“Hi Tana,” Tim said, finally looking up from his phone and surprising Oliver. He had been hoping they didn’t know each other. 

“Timothy,” she cooed. “And how is your lovely mother? I haven’t spoken to her in ages!”

“Me either,” Tim said, sighing tiredly. Oliver wondered if the kid had slept recently. It had quickly become a running joke in the League that this new little Robin slept less than the Batman did. There had been more than a few nasty comments about the man getting a taste of his own medicine. “But I got a postcard a month ago, which was nice. It was postmarked Bermuda.”

“How lovely,” Tana said excitedly, clearly not seeing the red flags in that statement that Oliver was seeing. 

“Are you staying with Bruce?” Oliver asked. Tim nodded, back to his phone. Oliver took it out of his hands but Tim was so tired that he didn’t even protest. He just dropped his hands back to his sides and stared out the window. Oliver could see that he was hacking into the darknet, something that was deeply impressive and not at all appropriate for a civilian lunch.

“Oh!” Tana exclaimed again, lighting up. “We should get lunch sometime, the three of us.” Oliver was slightly offended. It may not have been a real date to him but it was to her and here she was trying to wheedle her way into a date with another man through his kid that wasn’t even his kid. This was exactly why Oliver didn’t speak to Bruce half the time. That and Bruce’s close friendship with Dinah annoyed him greatly. 

“Okay,” Tim agreed idly and wandered off again, without his phone. Oliver locked the screen and set it down on the table. He watched Tim as he staggered through the tables, stopping every now and then to speak to people he clearly knew. Oliver wondered if people thought he was drunk. He was clearly in some sort of haze.

“He’s like that sometimes,” Tana said, shocking Oliver back to their conversation. “His mother says he has insomnia. That’s what it looks like when you don’t sleep for days on end. Half the time he doesn’t know what he's doing. There’s a good chance he won’t remember this lunch. Poor thing.”

“Yeah,” Oliver said, turning to watch the boy again. “Poor kid.” He wondered if Tim actually had insomnia or just obsessive behavior like Bruce. There was a reason Clark kept saying that Bruce’s new kid was just like him. 

Tana babbled about how amazing it was that Bruce was looking after the boy while his parents were away but Oliver was watching Tim talking to a table of socialites who had also clearly not been to bed for a few days and still dressed in their club clothes.

“That’s Sierra Nottingham,” Tana said helpfully. “The redhead that Tim’s speaking to. She managed to get three dates with Bruce before Jason said she sucked and Bruce stopped calling her.”

Oliver actually laughed at that. He couldn’t quite help it. He doubted very much that that was what actually happened. He knew for a fact that Bruce didn’t lightly introduce his kids to the woman of the moment. It would take far, far more than three dates for someone to come in contact with one of the boys. Unless it had been by accident. Regardless, he could definitely picture Jason telling Bruce his date sucked. Jason had been very obvious in the fact that he’d been hoping Bruce and Diana would become a couple instead. 

“She’s the heiress to her granddaddy’s shipping company. Not that she’ll ever run it herself. That’s for a future Prince Charming to handle.” Oliver raised an eyebrow at Tana, still amused. He was suddenly rather enjoying this gossip.

Tana gave him the story of each and every person Tim talked to before she excused herself to use the restroom. Tim slid into her empty seat. 

“I made a mistake,” he said.

“What kind of mistake?” Oliver asked, alarmed, still thinking of the Dark Net. 

“I told Sierra that Tana was trying to get a date with Bruce,” Tim replied. “I made a mistake.”

And, indeed, there was a sudden loud crash and Oliver whipped around just in time to see Tana and Sierra, each locked onto each other’s hair, fall into a table seating two elderly couples. The whole thing crashed to the ground, food, drinks, and silverware flying everywhere. The whole dining room was looking at the commotion, Sierra's friends rushing to her defense, staff rushing to break up the fight, and Bruce rushing over to grab his kid.

When Oliver looked back, Tim had a wide-eyed look to him like he just knew he was going to be blamed for this.

00000

All six women that were ultimately determined to be involved in the lunchtime brawl had been temporarily banned from the restaurant. Oliver had caught up with Bruce and Tim in the parking just long enough to hand the phone back. Bruce had pocketed it with a scowl, clearly perturbed to the point that his right eye was twitching every two minutes. Oliver felt absurdly proud of himself, even though he really had nothing to do with it in the first place. Tim was passed out in the front seat of the car, his body finally giving out. 

“Thanks,” Bruce said through gritted teeth, clearly still angry about their last argument but willing to take a temporary peace offering in the face of Robin-induced chaos. It had happened many times before with other Robins and Oliver suspected it would happen again in the future. 

“Of course,” he replied. “I like that kid. But he needs a lot more sleep.”

“I’m trying,” Bruce replied. “But I’ve been told that tranquilizers are inappropriate.”

“Maybe just cut off his access to the coffee machine,” Oliver joked. 

“The last time I did that he threw a tantrum and left the cave for three weeks,” Bruce told him, looking truly forlorn, and Oliver would have laughed at him if he thought that wouldn’t end with Bruce’s fist in his face. 

“Tana said it was insomnia,” Oliver said instead, opting for vaguely helpful. “Has he always been like that?”

“His parents will always give the easiest, least controversial explanation,” Bruce seethed. “It’s a by-product of obsessive behavior. He’ll get so bogged down in the details of whatever he’s doing that he’ll forget to eat or sleep. We’ve had to teach him how to listen to his body’s internal cues, but every now and then there are moments like these.”

Oliver contemplated the man in front of him. He had changed through the years, almost to the point of being an actual human being. 

“You know that whole brawl was about you right?” he asked, delighting in the uncomfortable look Bruce shot him. “Apparently, Tim accidentally told Sierra that Tana was angling for a date and the whole thing spiraled from there.”

“Those two have been competing over men since Bobby Greenspan agreed to take them both to the middle school formal and then ditched both of them for Chelsea St. Claire,” Bruce replied. “So, I hardly think that the fight was entirely about me. Tim knows that. The whole circuit knows that story. Chelsea tells everyone who will listen because it's the one time she’d ever beaten anyone for anything.”

“This town is ridiculous,” Oliver said, running a hand through his hair.

“Oh, please,” Bruce snorted. “As if you don’t have the same nonsense in your own hometown circles.”

Oliver didn’t dare reply knowing that whatever he said would have to be a lie. One that Bruce would viciously rip apart. They had known each other for far too long. 

“Oliver,” Bruce said, as the silence stretched.

“Yeah?” he asked, curious to where Bruce was about to take the conversation. 

“Get out of my city.”

He was in his car and driving off before Oliver could think of a response. He ended up having to text it to Bruce, which wouldn’t have been nearly as satisfying as saying it to his face would have been. 

Oliver was just glad his own flings didn’t cause brawls in public restaurants.


End file.
